How this Berlin-Vienna art collective are visualising the practice of discipline

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, discipline is “the training that makes people more willing to obey or more able to control themselves.” In the age of the coronavirus, to exercise discipline—in terms of social contact and limiting social engagements—is part of a worldwide movement to halt the spread of the respiratory disease. In the case of Berlin-Vienna-based art collective  Fountain’s Edit, however, the notion of ‘discipline’ serves as a creative springboard for their new book, DISZIPLIN, out now from POOL. Below, the six artists offer their own personal definition of the term, evoking ideas ranging from pursuing goals and self-optimisation, to the carefree abandonment of discipline in favour of rebellion. “Let go, break free from the daily grind, risk change and be open,” says one of its six members Erli Grünzweil. “Because in the end, you need the discipline to pull through.”

Nadia Morozewicz

“When you get up by the first alarm in the morning without hitting the snooze, saying no when your grandmother is offering you a second piece of cheesecake and following your work as a photographer although everyone can take a picture with their new phone, this is how I define the word discipline,” says Berlin-based photographer Nadia Morozewicz. For her, there are two different ways: 1) When you torture yourself to force yourself to do something you really need to achieve and 2) a productive way of discipline that pushes you to the limits. “I prefer the second one, so I have fun while working,” she claims.

 With her editorial no discipline, Morozewicz wants to turn around her personal definition of the word. “It’s a bit about the Berlin cliché regarding styling and behaviour,” explains the 30-year-old. “It’s about giving zero fucks.” The result? Models playing football in the studio and a spontaneous photoshoot in the local Späti. 

Martina Lajczak

“My first camera was a really bad one from Aldi when I was about 14,” says Vienna-based photographer Martina Lajczak. Since that special bargain, she perceives, reflects and copes with the world around through her lens. In 18 years or have you ever seen the Baltic Sea the 29-year-old focuses on a form of discipline that goes unnoticed. “I realised there is quite a big lack of the common sense of discipline like self-optimisation or reaching institutional goals across my personal surroundings,” she says. “What I saw instead was a lot of disciplined strategies to somehow generate meaning executed in a very hedonistic way.”

Lajczak accompanied her mother on a genealogical journey to the country where she was born and spent half of her life in—the first time after 18 years of absence. “I have rarely seen a person who developed so much discipline to trace our origin,” Lajczak tells SLEEK. “The concept of discipline feels like a curse and a blessing at the same time. And as with many things that are supposed to regulate daily life, it is something that shouldn’t be lived out in extremes.”

Marlene Mautner

“Discipline comes in a lot of different shapes,” says Marlene Mautner, a Vienna-based still life photographer, who’s currently living in San Francisco. “Everyone needs to find their own form of discipline, even if it’s disciplined chaos.” Always interested in creating something new within a picture, Mautner invents and builds new environments rather than only perceiving her surroundings.

Mautner doesn’t believe in discipline as a strict set of rules to follow. In her series, she wants to show two different meanings of the word: the discipline that characterises sport, and art as a discipline at the Olympic Games. “I was interested in how art can be practiced when it has to adapt to the strict rules of the Olympics,” she tells SLEEK. “How can art be subjected to rules? Can disciplined art even exist?”

Erli Grünzweil

“We always try to change, to improve and to optimise ourselves,” says Vienna-based photographer Erli Grünzweil. “But what we actually do is adapt to our circumstances.” When the 27-year-old started his very personal series Imprisoned Existence, discipline was a synonym for being under surveillance and control. The protagonist of his series is trapped in everyday life, Grünzweil felt the same way back then. He attempted to change the way he felt through sports, reading about meditation, Ikigai and playing chess. Grünzweil wants to dig deeper via staging and manipulation to make photography a thought-provoking experience for the viewer.

When does happiness occur? What does discipline add to it? Even if the artist didn’t come to a final conclusion, he still learned what really makes him happy: “Let go, break free from the daily grind, risk change and be open because, in the end, you need discipline to pull through.”

Alicia Pawelczak

“I hated the word discipline and everything that comes with it, especially self-discipline,” explains Alicia Pawelczak who works with images. “The more discipline(d) you are the more you are a working part of this thing called society, something bigger than yourself.”

Her series is part of a video work called I’m still very fond of u :))) which addresses ‘living the dream’, at least for young people living in a time when to be a YouTuber, a reality TV star or even earning yourself a blue check on Instagram is more desirable than ever. “Validation is one of the highest forms of self-awareness and self-affirmation,” explains the 27-year-old artist who’s currently based between Vienna and Munich. The audio is taken from YouTube videos of girls talking to their audience whether it’s a haul or a random vlog. “And sometimes, in this carefree life of getting matcha and unboxing gifted clothes, you can feel the rigour in which the discipline shows itself: it’s the wording and all the lines you know you have to say if you want to live the successful, fun and adventurous life of our time,” says Pawelczak.

Susanna Hofer

“I love watching figure skating, it comes across superficially beautiful with such an ease in every moment,” explains the Vienna-based artist Susanna Hofer. “There is a reason why it’s also known as dancing on knives.” Out of her fascination for the movement’s wonderful lightness—the effort of which can only be really seen in its flaws—her series holiday on ice emerged. “Maybe it’s the disruption that breaks down this seemingly magical lightness of what it actually is —a tough sport that does not tolerate coincidence.” You could call Hofer’s artistic practice a mixture of still life and sculpture, but there’s more to it. She likes composing pictures or narratives, the idea of the tableau vivant, the living picture.

DISZIPLIN is published by POOL. You can get your copy hier.